1. Field of the Invention
The present invention generally relates to the field of heat-shrinking film packaging, and in particular to a device for both fitting a heat-shrinking film over an article to be packed and heating and shrinking the packaging film with a simplified structure.
2. The Related Art
Plastic packaging films have been widely used to wrap and pack consumer products, such as foods, books, video/audio compact disks for protecting the products from contamination and damage. The film is fit over an article to be packaged and then heated to shrink and thus tightly wrap over the article.
Conventionally, in a large-scale packaging system that employs heat-shrinking film to pack commercial or industrial products, two separate stations are arranged, respectively for fitting a length of a tubular packaging film over each of the products to be packed and for heating and thus shrinking the film tightly over the product. This is because the film fitting and film shrinking operations must be organized in accordance with the a number of parameters, such as the products to be packed, the quantity of the products to be packed in unit time of manufacturing and the manufacturing process of the products. Thus, integration of the fitting and shrinking operations in a single device is not available heretofore, especially for small businesses having limited work space and/or small quantity packaging operation.
Further, the conventional packaging system also suffers the complication of the parts and structure thereof. This makes it hard, and even impossible, to operate the system with a single operator. The packaging system is comprised of at least two stations, respectively for film fitting and film shrinking, requiring separate operators. This increases the overall costs of labor and time consumed in wrapping products. This is anther reason that the conventional packaging system does not fit the need of small-sized businesses and small-scale packaging.
Thus, the present invention is aimed to provide a unitary packaging device that overcomes the drawbacks of the conventional packaging systems.